Mark Steinmetz


Mark Steinmetz is an American photographer. He makes black and white photographs "of ordinary people in the ordinary landscapes they inhabit".
His work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hunter Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Museum of Modern Art, New York and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Life and work

Steinmetz was born in New York City and raised in the Boston suburbs of Cambridge and Newton until he was 12. He then moved to the midwest before, aged 21, he went to study photography at the Yale School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut. He left that MFA program after one semester and in mid 1983, aged 22, moved to Los Angeles in search of the photographer Garry Winogrand, whom he befriended. He moved to Athens, Georgia in 1999 and was still living and working there as of 2017.
Steinmetz makes photographs "of ordinary people in the ordinary landscapes they inhabit", and "in the midst of activity". Most of his work has been made in the USA but also in Paris and Italy. His books combine portraits and candid photos of people, and also include animals and still life photos. He finds many of his subjects whilst walking around but he has also spent time at Little League Baseball and summer camps.
Steinmetz works with black and white film, usually medium format, developed and printed in his own darkroom.
In 1994 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Publications

Steinmetz's work is held in the following public collections: